Book Cover of Far From the Madding Crowd

Far From the Madding Crowd

by Thomas Hardy

Far from the Madding Crowd (1874) is Thomas Hardy's fourth novel and his first major literary success. It originally appeared anonymously as a monthly serial in Cornhill Magazine, where it gained a wide readership. The novel is the first to be set in Thomas Hardy's Wessex in rural southwest England. It deals in themes of love, honour and betrayal, against a backdrop of the seemingly idyllic, but often harsh, realities of a farming community in Victorian England. It describes the life and relationships of Bathsheba Everdene with her lonely neighbour William Boldwood, the faithful shepherd Gabriel Oak, and the thriftless soldier Sergeant Troy. On publication, critical notices were plentiful and mostly positive. Hardy revised the text extensively for the 1895 edition and made further changes for the 1901 edition. In 2003, the novel was listed at number 48 on the BBC's survey The Big Read. In 2007, the book finished 10th on The Guardian's list of greatest love stories of all time. The novel has been dramatised several times, notably in the Oscar-nominated 1967 film directed by John Schlesinger.

Book Details

Language

English

Original Language

English

Published In

1874

Author

Thomas Hardy image

Hardy wrote poetry throughout his life and regarded himself primarily as a poet, his first collection was not published until 1898. Initially, he gained fame as the author of novels such as Far from t...

More on Thomas Hardy

Listen/Download Audiobook

Read by:
00:00
Playback Speed 1.0
00:00
  • Select Speed

Related books

The Job Cover image

The Job by Sinclair Lewis

The Job is an early work by American novelist Sinclair Lewis. It is considered an early declaration of the rights of working women. The focus is on th...

The Roll-Call  Cover image

The Roll-Call by Arnold Bennett

"The Roll-Call" is the sequel to the Clayhanger trilogy. This book concerns the young life of Clayhanger's stepson, George. George Edwin Cannon (he qu...

Rilla of Ingleside Cover image

Rilla of Ingleside by Lucy Maud Montgomery

Rilla of Ingleside (1921) is the eighth of nine books in the Anne of Green Gables series by Lucy Maud Montgomery, but was the sixth "Anne" novel in pu...

An Earthman on Venus Cover image

An Earthman on Venus by Ralph Milne Farley

The novel concerns electrical engineer Myles Cabot, who disappears from his home in Boston while performing an experiment. He finds himself transporte...

The Painted Veil Cover image

The Painted Veil by W. Somerset Maugham

The Painted Veil is a novel by British author W. Somerset Maugham. The title is a reference to Percy Bysshe Shelley's 1824 sonnet, which begins "Lift...

The Passionate Friends  Cover image

The Passionate Friends by H. G. Wells

The Passionate Friends is a love story. It also is a story about dreams, despair, jealousy, sex, the struggle against social convention, the future of...

Allan's Wife  Cover image

Allan's Wife by H. Rider Haggard

We begin with young (age 9-ish) Allan at home in England meeting young Stella; then, Stella's mother abandons her husband (more than a whiff of scanda...

The House of Baltazar Cover image

The House of Baltazar by William John Locke

It is a tale of love, family, and duty set in the exotic backdrop of Guatemala, Central America. The story revolves around the life of a young man, D...

Some Do Not... Cover image

Some Do Not... by Ford Madox Ford

Some Do Not... is a tale of social cruelty among the English upper classes that pits real honour against shameless duplicity and subjects its principa...

Pray You, Sir, Whose Daughter? Cover image

Pray You, Sir, Whose Daughter? by Anonymous

Twenty-year-old Gertrude Foster has had the sheltered upbringing typical of women of her class. Yet, she questions the restrictive norms with which sh...

Reviews for Far From the Madding Crowd

No reviews posted or approved, yet...